Writing in the Language Sciences journal, psychologists Timothy and Kristin Jay dismiss the idea that swearing is a sign of a lack of education.

Their study aimed to find out whether those who are more confident in their swearing ability were less fluent in other forms of vocabulary.

Working with the assumption that people swear because they lack knowledge to find other ways to express themselves, the researchers ask students how many different swear words they could name in 60 seconds.

We cannot help but judge others on the basis of their speech. Unfortunately, when it comes to taboo language, it is a common assumption that people who swear frequently are lazy, do not have an adequate vocabulary, lack education, or simply cannot control themselves. The overall finding of this set of studies, that taboo fluency is positively correlated with other measures of verbal fluency, undermines the POV [Poverty of Vocabulary] view of swearing. That is, a voluminous taboo lexicon may better be considered an indicator of healthy verbal abilities rather than a cover for their deficiencies. Speakers who use taboo words understand their general expressive content as well as nuanced distinctions that must be drawn to use slurs appropriately.